The Seventeenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established direct election of United States Senators by popular vote. Under the original provisions of the Constitution, senators were elected by state legislatures; this was intended to ensure that the federal government contained representatives of the states, and also to provide a body not dependent on popular support that could afford to "take a more detached view of issues coming before Congress". Critics of the Seventeenth Amendment claim that by altering the way senators are elected, the states lost any representation they had in the federal government and that this led to the gradual "slide into ignominy" of state legislatures.
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